The LCRI are hosting the launch event for the Solcer House on Thursday 16th July 2015 which demonstrates the building integrated systems based approach to low carbon.

The event is being held to celebrate the successful collaboration between academia, industry and government that has taken place as a result of the Low Carbon Research Institute (LCRI) HEFCW Reconfiguration and WEFO Convergence Programmes that have been ongoing since 2005. The LCRI was set up to unite and promote energy research and to help deliver a low carbon future in Wales by uniting the diverse range of low carbon energy research across Welsh universities at Cardiff, Swansea, South Wales, Glyndwr, Bangor, and Aberystwyth working closely with industry and government.

The Solcer house launch will present research and partnerships that have developed associated with optimising a whole building as a low carbon system. This systems based approach – combining renewable energy supply, storage and demand reduction technologies – has been applied in the replicable new build ‘Solcer’ house and 5 retrofits of typical welsh housing stock which will be demonstrated at the event. These low carbon technologies are integrated into buildings rather than taking the traditional “bolt on” approach.

The LCRI team through these demonstration projects have sourced, as far as reasonably practicable, components from Welsh manufacturers and will be used as a demonstration of advanced Welsh construction technologies. The low carbon systems used have been designed to be affordable and replicable for small to medium size enterprises using market available technologies whilst using a very low amount of energy to provide a comfortable environment for building occupants.

The event is being supported by Specific, BASF, Pilkingtons and Cenin Ltd.

11:00 Professor Phil Jones will give an Overview of the Solcer house project

11:15 Kevin Bygate: SPECIFIC

11:25 Nick Brown: BASF

11:35 Simone Vooijs: Tata Steel

11:45 Phil Ramsey: NSG Group

12:55 Jo Patterson: Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University

12:05 Professor Phil Jones: LCRI’s future plans

12:10 Refreshments and tours of the house

The lunch will be followed by presentations and case studies from The Sustainable Building Envelope Demonstration (SBED) project. There is an open invitation for morning guests to join this conference.

The Sustainable Building Envelope Demonstration (SBED) project is led by the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, in partnership with Tata Steel.

The project’s aim was to: model, test, prototype and monitor low carbon building systems incorporating transpired solar collectors (TSC) in six ‘buildings in use’ in Convergence Areas of Wales. Building types include residential, domestic, commercial (offices or retail), industrial and institutional (schools). The event will share the knowledge and experience learnt from the installation and will demonstrate how the TSCs use solar power to heat air before directing in into the building.